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Eleven years ago, J. and I met at Border’s Cafe on Kirby in Houston. Ten years ago, we married in a little chapel in front of 120 guests. We honeymooned in San Diego and kayaked with sharks in La Jolla.

Six months before, in March 2002, Jeff proposed to me at midnight in San Diego on Sunset Cliffs. The fog was rolling in and the light house shone its bright beam on the water. In the pale glow of the the headlights, he knelt down and offered me the ring he had comissionsed to be made for me — it’s tiny white gold band with scrollwork of flowers and vines and buds. The single carat diamond of perfect clarity that still to this day is so clear, you can see to the bottom. The next day, we drove up the coast to Los Angeles and visited with my brother and his family. We told everyone, waking a few.

That August as the heat rolled in, we said “I do” and toasted and laughed. My mother and stepfather-in-law gave us a Tiffany cake serving set and we cut the cake onto which my mother had placed her parents’ wedding topper from the early 1930s.

I launched the bouquet over the deck of the marina into the lawn beyond and my little sister caught the gardenias tied with red satin.

At the wedding, someone said to my mother, “Amanda is the kite and Jeff is the one holding the kite.” This is my favorite story.

It is amazing how fast ten years come and go. We met a month before 9/11 and were shaped by it, grew closer in those first fearful, terrible months. We have been through family emergencies, deaths, hurricanes, illnesses, deaths of pets, my graduate school, the writing and publishing of my two books. We live every day as if it were a holiday, a special occasion. We laugh often. We look in the same direction.

Love is the best gift of life and I cherish this each day when I wake up and each night when I go to sleep. My favorite place: on the couch, my feet in my husband’s lap, and a cat between us. We have a simple love. And I am so blessed.